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British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

bbc.com

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Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#51

Post by JshWright »

zozbot234 wrote: post #26
orobinson wrote: post #24

It’s amazing how this phenomenon has been adapted into medical technology. When my son was born he wasn’t breathing properly and his blood oxygen levels dropped to critical levels. He was rushed to hospital and the first thing they did was cool him to 34c to reduce the risk of brain damage. He made a full recovery. I dread to think what would have happened without the cooling.

Why not cool the patient before rushing them to hospital, if the technique is so widely applicable? It could easily be made a standard feature of emergency medical services.

The process is called "targeted temperature management" and it's pretty common in EMS protocols. It's a part of the standard cardiac arrest "algorithm".

https://acls-algorithms.com/post-cardiac-arrest-care/

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#52

Post by JshWright »

tapland wrote: post #30
zozbot234 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not cool the patient before rushing them to hospital, if the technique is so widely applicable? It could easily be made a standard feature of emergency medical services.

Because it's hard. I helped out at a company among many that are trying to develop a system that would allow you to do this in ambulance and they started testing prototypes 10 years ago and have yet to progress from that stage.

It's not that hard... you just throw some ice packs in the groin and armpits. You won't get them fully into the TTM range in a 20 minute transport, but you can start the process.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#53

Post by Teandw »

unnouinceput wrote: post #15
mkesper wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your brain doesn't get oxygen it will die. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_hypoxia

It's more then that in this case. She had not vital signs at all, heart not beating and providing oxygen included.

It's important to note that she had no 'detectable' vital signs. Not that she didn't have any vital signs.

Very important difference.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#54

Post by Teandw »

MarkMc wrote: post #45

Does this suggest that humans can be put into 'hibernation' to extend their lifespan? (Edit: I mean would be possible in future if we had a better understanding of the process?) If I was rich enough I'd host a competition to extend the life of rats: Each year, whoever could demonstrate a technique to reliably extend the lifespan of a rat by at least 10% over the previous year's record would win a million dollars. I e…

"Does this suggest that humans can be put into 'hibernation' to extend their lifespan?"

Basically, no. Not that we know of yet anyway. This is more of a 'stars aligning' story and her being lucky not to have the bad side effects of her situation. The bad side effects happen more times than not in this sort of thing. Death or brain damage.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#55

Post by dsfyu404ed »

JshWright wrote: post #52
tapland wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's hard. I helped out at a company among many that are trying to develop a system that would allow you to do this in ambulance and they started testing prototypes 10 years ago and have yet to progress from that stage.

It's not that hard... you just throw some ice packs in the groin and armpits. You won't get them fully into the TTM range in a 20 minute transport, but you can start the process.

Sticking ice in proximity to major arteries is going to be a lot less effective without a beating heart to circulate all that newly cold blood.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#57

Post by ryanmercer »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #32
hprotagonist wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>easily seems like a bold claim to me.

What would be even easier is putting the whole hospital inside the ambulance then you don't have to actually take the patient anywhere.

You'd have to make it bigger on the inside.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#58

Post by JshWright »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #55
JshWright wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that hard... you just throw some ice packs in the groin and armpits. You won't get them fully into the TTM range in a 20 minute transport, but you can start the process.

Sticking ice in proximity to major arteries is going to be a lot less effective without a beating heart to circulate all that newly cold blood.

This procedure is initiated after the heart has been restarted[1]. You're absolutely correct that it's pointless to do it earlier, especially since the far more important thing is getting the heart beating again.

[1] This is known as "targeted temperature management" (TTM), and is part of the standard post-ROSC (return of spontaneous circulation) algorithm in ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support), if you're looking for terms to Google.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#59

Post by zozbot234 »

MarkMc wrote: post #45

Does this suggest that humans can be put into 'hibernation' to extend their lifespan? (Edit: I mean would be possible in future if we had a better understanding of the process?) If I was rich enough I'd host a competition to extend the life of rats: Each year, whoever could demonstrate a technique to reliably extend the lifespan of a rat by at least 10% over the previous year's record would win a million dollars. I e…

> If I was rich enough I'd host a competition to extend the life of rats: Each year, whoever could demonstrate a technique to reliably extend the lifespan of a rat by at least 10% over the previous year's record would win a million dollars.

Something quite close to this is being done for mice. The Methuselah Foundation awards cash prizes for (1) 'the longest-living mouse' and (2) the longest-living 'rejuvenated' mouse, i.e. you have to design a treatment that works for 'old' mice, extending their life as much as possible.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#60

Post by jobigoud »

workthrowaway wrote: post #44
OscarCunningham wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightning strikes don't wipe people's personalities. Also during epileptic seizures people's neurons fire in abnormal ways, but then return to normal afterwards. So I'd say that the RAM isn't critical; humans can boot from disk.

> humans can boot from disk wow, this is so intriguing. i like this analogy even if i don't know how accurate it is. we indeed have things that we forget (running out of space?) and things that take time to remember (disk latency).

We also probably have things that we forget/block/deny but are still there somewhere underneath, reachable only if we are put in the correct psychological conditions.

Like how deleting files doesn't properly wipe out the bits and with the right tools you can still recover deleted info.

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